Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 Shouldn't Be Censored

A USGamer writer said in a recent Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 preview that one scene made her uncomfortable because it alluded to rape. Who does she think she is - a writer paid to give her impressions on a video game?

Previews must be objective. There's no room for feelings or emotions. Instead of talking about how Dracula sucking a woman dry in front of her child upsets her, she should stick to the facts. Her description of the scene should have gone like this:

"Dracula killed people and ate them. He likes blood. Did you know Dracula was based on a Wallachian Prince named Vlad III the Impaler? It's true! Optimal word count achieved. Here are screenshots."

The USGamer writer states that the scene in question is a clumsy, "gratuitous" attempt to make Dracula seem evil. Oh, like the developers need your help in writing the story! MercurySteam is making a sequel to a reboot of a 28-year-old video game series based on a 117-year-old novel. I think it's safe to say their brains are already filled to the brim with original ideas.

Criticizing a game before it's released is unfair. How am I supposed to pre-order this game with all this negativity going around? How can I properly enjoy the thought of my bonus Dracula Armor Skin when I know that someone dislikes the game in a narrow way? This is how it's supposed to work: you provide a toothless preview of the game, we buy it, we get disappointed, we slam you for not criticizing the game before it hit stores. This system is perfect for publishers, developers and therefore everyone.

Gamers aren't just upset that she criticized the game. They're upset that she asked the developers to get rid of the scene. In other words, she's advocating censorship. It's the worst kind of censorship, too: the kind where you say you don't like something but leave it up to the creator to do whatever they want. It's like those fascists at the Central Park Zoo asking me not to taunt the snow monkeys. Butt out, fellas - this is between me and Yub-Yub.

This censorship is a slippery slope. Today a writer is criticizing a game. Tomorrow, another writer will be criticizing another game. The day after that....slippery slope!

It's like the old saying about the Holocaust. "First they came for the games with vampires that appeared to rape someone. Then they came for the games with vampires who didn't rape anyone. Then they came for the games with vampires that" - okay, it's a pretty long expression. The gyst of it is that we all end up in a concentration camp with a bunch of vampires. That doesn't sound very safe.